Alone
by Spacefille
Summary: Dib has been alone far too long... set 5 years in the future, mild Dib Zita pairing.


I wrote this nearly entirely in the space of an evening (Christmas Eve, Dec. 24th/03) from start to finish. 

**Merry Christmas/Happy Holidays everyone!** :)

~~~

"Alone"

~~~

_'No,'_ That was the first thought that crossed her mind when she heard her name called out and the name which followed. The person who followed... that was going to be her partner for the crime unit in their Social class. Her partner for group presentations. Her partner-- someone she'd have to work along side and in close proximity to for the next two weeks. 

"Now get together in your groups," their Grade 9 teacher, Miss Summers, said cheerfully. 

She let out a little groan, which was lost in the clatter of desks and chatter of voices as the other members of her class followed instructions. She made no move to obey however. Instead she put her head on her arms. "No..." She muttered again, this time out loud. Great. She was paired with the class freak. Of all the people to put her with, did she have to put her with... HIM? 

He was a geek, as well as a paranoid, crazy person, she had the displeasure of sharing a class with for... well, most of her life. He was in her Elementary school with her and all three years of Junior High School so far. He was quiet now that he was in Junior High... but she remembered when he had been quite loud and obnoxious in Elementary school. He also hadn't been an attractive child, and he certainly did not make an attractive teenager... the years had allowed him to shoot up like a weed, but too fast for his body to fill out, making him even more gangly and awkward looking than ever before. Pimples, the classic sign of puberty decorated his too pale face, which was framed by lanky, greasy, near black hair that he still attempted to keep combed back and huge round glasses. He clenched the trench coat he wore around himself like it was a lifeline. She wasn't even sure the last time he had washed that thing, if ever. She wrinkled her nose in distaste. She so didn't want to be paired with him. Oh nonononononono...

He was oblivious to her distress. She watched as he made his way unenthusiastically across the room to stand at the desk next to hers and looked down at her, his eyes inspecting her coldly from behind his thick glasses. She ignored him, besides to lean away from him a bit in case he smelled. He didn't, but he looked like he smelled, and it was better to be safe than sorry. After a moment he sighed and grabbed an empty desk, dragging it closer to hers. Then he sat in it, shuffling around with his books for a moment. 

"I don't want to be partnered with you any more than you do," The boy pointed out after a moment, swiping a lock of hair behind his ear as he spoke. The once relatively high pitched voice had become quite deep since Elementary school, but that was about the only thing that had changed about Dib since then. 

Zita sniffed. "Whatever," She mumbled. She sat up suddenly and made a production of ruffling through her bag for her textbook. This meant that she missed the fleeting hurt look that cross Dib's face, which was very quickly replaced with irritation. 

"Look," The boy pointed out as he drew out the textbook they were using for the unit... _'Crime and Social Deviancy in Modern Society'_. "We've been put together on this, and we have less than two weeks to put together a presentation on... something. So..." He opened the textbook and let it fall open randomly upon his desk and sat back with a sigh. "Let's get to work, all right?" 

Zita ignored him pointedly and began to skim the table of contents for a subject. 

Dib sighed again. It was going to be a long two weeks. Like everything else in his life, working with Zita was probably going to prove difficult. Well, like the girl said... whatever. Do the work; pull off an 'A'. Give him something worth living for and make Father proud. That WAS how it worked, didn't it?

A week later found them, along with various members of their class, working dedicatedly on their projects. Somehow, during the course of a week, Zita had somehow managed to avoid talking to her partner. A lot. They had managed to decide on a topic... first degree murder. Some people had chosen other subjects like rape, suicide, or armed robbery... but Zita had felt like murder at about the time that they had to decide on a subject at the very end of that first class. Dib had shrugged and agreed impassively. 

Actually it wasn't that bad, she begrudgingly had to admit. Dib, despite his history of craziness, was quite smart. He actually managed to keep the ranting down too... thank god. He finally got the hint. Though the lack of crazy ranting may have been because of the lack of extra-terrestrials in the class... or really anything else that Dib could find incredibly freakishly weird. On that subject, she wondered, as she had from time to time over the last three years, what had happened to the E.T. He was kinda cool. The alien had probably went back to his kind though. Ah well. Good riddance to him actually... it had meant that Dib was finally able to shut up about him. 

She managed to get by most of the class by reading the chapter of the textbook on murder, while Dib read from some other books he found from the library. 

"So 'despite the decline in manslaughter in recent years...'" He was reading out loud again. Zita's eyebrow twitched and she gritted her teeth. Even though his voice was deeper, it was still annoying. "'The incidence of murder in the first degree is on the rise...'"

And that was wrong too. Zita looked up. "What?" She asked turning around in her chair to look at him. She squinted. 

"Here," Dib replied. He pointed to a passage and stuck the book he was reading from under her nose. 

"I heard you the first time!" She snapped, batting the book away angrily. "I'm not stupid you know," She added, fuming. 

Dib actually looked a bit shocked as he withdrew the book. "I never said you were," the boy replied a bit plaintively after a moment. 

Even she had to admit her reaction was a little harsh. '_He doesn't understand,'_ she thought to herself. 

Zita sighed out loud. "I was just saying... here..." she flipped back a couple of pages in her text. "It said somewhere in here..." She skimmed the page she was on looking for the passage which contradicted Dib's point. "'In North America, all forms of Murder and like crimes are on the decline...'" She looked up just in time to catch a particular expression cross Dib's face. "What?" She asked a bit snidely. 

"Nothing," The boy said swiftly. He shut his book abruptly and ran his fingers though his awful ugly hair. _'He really is repulsive,' _She thought fleetingly. "All right," Dib agreed, pointing to the textbook she held. "We'll go with that one." He said. 

Zita inspected him silently for a long moment. That wasn't something she had expected. She expected a vibrant argument about why the book Dib was reading was more right than the one she was reading. 

"It's the class text, we may as well," Dib explained with a shrug. 

Zita nodded quickly, the sound of his voice startling her back to action. "Okay," She said, and went back to reading. 

Things were a little more amicable between them after that. Which meant they didn't talk at all. 

~~~

It was two classes before presentations when the teacher, the ever sunny Miss Summers told them cheerfully that they would probably have to work on their projects outside of class time if they weren't done yet. They weren't done... they weren't even done taking notes, let alone deciding how they were going to present their material. Which meant they'd have to get together after school to work on it. 

Grrreeaatt...

Zita sat back in her chair, sculpted brow drawn together in a frown as she sulked. They had done their work and hadn't goofed off all class like most of the people there. They shouldn't have to worry about getting together after school. This SUCKED. She glanced over at her partner. 

Dib looked impassive and bored. 

Zita sighed. _'Well,'_ She thought as she gathered up her notes and stuck them in her bag. _'Looks like I have to take the initiative. Again.'_

"Your place or mine?" She asked, her voice cold. 

That got a response. Dib turned his head to look at her, his brows raised in shock. _'His eyes are nice,'_ Zita thought idly. They were a pretty brown color, the color of pale tea. It was only because his eyes were open in shock that she even had the chance to see them though. 

"M-my house?" the boy stuttered. 

Zita raised an eyebrow. "Yeah," She replied. "We have to get to finish this, don't we?" She didn't even try to keep the bitterness out of her voice. Spending time with Dib out of class was NOT her idea of a good time. 

"Well ... I can't... I mean..." Dib blinked, then found his voice. Sort of. "Can't we just do it in the library after school or something?" He asked, a bit pleadingly.

Zita stood up, shouldering her bookbag as she did so. "No." She said abruptly. "Are you kidding?" she added. 

Dib looked a bit affronted. "There is nothing wrong with the library..." He said. He then sighed, dropping the subject. "Um... all right. So your--" 

"Not my house," Zita added quickly. She watched as Dib picked up his books as well and began to walk with her out of the class. 

"Why?" Dib asked, sounding more curious than anything.

Zita snorted. "Are you kidding? My Dad will have a bird if I brought a strange guy home with me." She said. "Not to mention my Mom," It was the truth. Stupid parents... she glowered at nothing. 

"At least you have a Mom," Dib said quietly. It was said so softly that she nearly missed it. 

She glanced at Dib out of the corner of her eye, feeling a brief tug of sympathy for her fellow student. "What happened?" She asked after a moment. 

A small smile twisted at the side of Dib's face. "I don't remember." He said finally, seriously. "She died in a lab accident a few months after my sister was born. Dad and her too... they were both renowned scientists you know." 

"Oh that's right," Zita replied. She vaguely remembered that Dib's living parent was the great Professor Membrane... or something like that. He had a late night cable show that still ran in repeats, again, if she remembered correctly. Still two scientists as parents, one who managed to off herself in a lab accident, and another with a cable show, no wonder their kid turned out a little bit like a nutcase. 

"So uh..." Dib cleared his throat and stopped in the hall. "My place then?" He asked, sounding just a tad awkward as he shuffled and stared at his boots for a moment. 

Zita stopped as well. "All right," She agreed. "I'll call home and tell my Dad I'll be doing home work with a friend." She continued. 

Dib nodded. "All right." He said. "I'll see you after school?" 

Zita nodded back. "Yup," She replied. 

And with that they parted ways and went onto their next classes. 

~~~

The walk home was more than interesting. Dib told her when they left the school where he lived; it was about five blocks in a particular direction. She even knew what street it was on... partly because she had relatives on that street, probably a few houses down from Dib's. But knowing the direction only confused her when the boy made to walk down a street that wasn't in the same direction as his at all. 

"Where are we going?" Zita asked, straining to keep the irritation out of her voice. 

Dib looked at her, surprised. "To my house." He replied. 

"Isn't your house in that direction?" She asked, tossing a lock of pale purple hair behind her ear and pointing the right way.

A particular look crossed Dib's face. At that moment the boy's face became deep-set and shuttered. "We're going to go this way instead," He said abruptly, then turned to do just that.

Zita stared after him, her mouth hanging open slightly. "Are you crazy?" She said after a moment. She ran to catch up with him. "It's so much shorter that way!" She added as she caught up and attempted to match strides with him. 

Dib shook his head slowly. "I'm not crazy," He replied.

"Yeah? Well you're not making any sense," Zita grumbled, stuffing her fists in her pockets. 

Dib sighed. He ran a hand through his hair and glanced at her out of the side of his face. "Someone... I used to know... lived in that direction," He said in way of an explanation. 

"Who?" Zita asked, surprised. "Chunk?" She happened to know that the football dumbass in their class liked to pick on Dib a lot, still, even though they were supposed to have grown out of that now that they were almost in High School. 

Dib shook his head quickly. "No. And I don't want to talk about it." He added swiftly. 

Confused, Zita turned over in her mind who Dib could possibly be avoiding by making them walk an extra couple blocks to his house. If it wasn't Chunk, then who...? He said it was someone he used to... 

_'Huh!'_ Zita nearly stopped in her tracks at the sudden thought. Zim. That's it! It had to be. "Was it Zim?" She asked. "You know... that little green kid back in Elementary School?" 

Bingo. She was right, she could tell by the way Dib stumbled a half step and had to right himself. He did shoot her a brief surprised look. "You remember him?" He asked after a moment. 

Zita gave Dib a briefly irritated look. "Yeess..." She said slowly. "What happened to him?" She asked, slightly curious now. If Dib was avoiding the alien's house, than obviously something was up. Even if she hadn't actually seen the little green guy in almost three years... 

Dib merely shrugged at her question. He hunched his shouldered deeper into his trench coat and quickened his pace a slightly bit. 

"Oh come on," Zita pressed, nearly having to run to keep pace with the boy now. "You can't possibly tell me that you used to spend every moment of your life ranting and raving about him being an alien and then tell me you have no possible idea where he is! That's crazy!" 

Dib shrugged again. 

"I'm not stupid you know," Zita added. 

Dib was silent for a long moment. Then, "I never said you were stupid," the boy said quietly. He stared straight ahead and didn't look at her. 

_'Well you'd be about the only one,'_ Zita thought, despite herself. She shook her head swiftly, switching mental tracks. "YOU'RE stupid," She said, her voice suddenly harsh and abrasive. 

That got another surprised look, mirrored from the same one when she had pushed Dib's book away in class a couple days before. 

"You're stupid..." She continued, "_AND_ crazy for even trying to convince people that Zim was an alien," She added, unable to keep the bitterness out of her voice. That was the problem wasn't it? Dib had ostracized himself past repair back in elementary school. If he had just shut up, he wouldn't be quite the hopeless miserable person she was walking beside right now 

The boy opened his mouth, to shoot back a retort, she assumed, when he stopped abruptly, dead in his tracks. Zita stopped too. 

"Wait a minute..." Dib's eyes were suddenly wide and wild looking. "You... you don't deny that he was an alien?" He asked. 

Well... she *could* deny it. At that particular moment she could deny everything and tell him that, no, she was merely repeating his words from years past back at him. But there was such a quiet desperation in his gaze that she... couldn't. Instead she gritted her teeth and looked at her feet without saying anything. 

If it were possible, Dib's eyes widened even more. "Do you actually believe me?" He said. "That Zim was an alien?" The desperation in his voice was almost painful to hear. 

"Of course I knew he was an alien," Zita shot back. "I didn't sit behind him for a year and not know that he was an alien!" She looked up now, meeting his gaze. 

Dib looked hurt. And frustrated. "Than why didn't you ever SAY anything?" He asked, his voice raising and flailing his arms out to either side of his body. 

"Because." Zita said through clenched teeth. She leaned in closer to glare up at the boy. "Because you don't just announce that to a class full of fifth graders Dib! So WHAT if Zim was an alien? No of us CARED. And he was funny. Especially when he was making fun of YOU. All telling us that he was an alien did," She thrust her finger towards his chest, poking him. "Was make you a laughing stock of the school. THAT'S why I called you crazy so much. Because you WERE, for doing that to yourself! Now, looking back, was it worth it Dib? Really?" 

Dib looked at her silently for a moment, his eyes searching her face. Finally he let out a little sigh and turned away, his face shuttering off of again. "I don't know," He muttered. 

"Probably not right?" Zita pressed. 

Dib shrugged. "I don't want to talk about this anymore." He said tersely. His pace increased again. "We probably should hurry before it gets dark." He added. 

_'Typical,'_ Stilling an exasperated sigh and a rant to boot, Zita went with the change of topic. "Okay," she replied. The sooner she got to the nutcase's house the sooner she could get home again (not that she particularly wanted to) and out of the nutcase's house. 

~~~

Apparently Dib wasn't the only nut in his family. It looked like the boy had the fine privilege to live with two others of the same sort of questionable mental state. She started at the electric fence (who the hell had an electric fence around their yard in the city anyhow?) in the front yard. She also blinked in surprise as a floating head greeted them at the door. 'Holodad' as Dib referred to it. The sound of music assaulted her ears from the room one over. The music, as it turned out, belonged to Dib's little sister's video game. His sister was playing it in the livingroom on one of the largest TVs she had ever seen. Dib didn't even bother to introduce her as they walked by. 

They settled down in the kitchen, which luckily for her at least looked somewhat normal, and set up to begin going through their notes. They only got two paragraphs of their presentation done when Zita suddenly shut her textbook with a large bang and an exasperated growling noise. 

Dib looked up at her from across the table, surprised. 

"Do you think your sister can turn that down?" She asked in a low voice. The TV wasn't that loud, but it was certainly loud enough to be distracting. "I can't study with that on."

Dib turned his head and called out of the kitchen. "Gaz!" He said. "Can you turn that down?" 

Instead of turning it down the girl turned the game music up. 

Dib didn't look or sound too impressed. "GAZ!" He shouted, louder than he ever said or spoke anything in school. "We're trying to study in here!" 

Zita was beginning to be thankful she was an only child. She rubbed her forehead, feeling a brief spark of pain light up behind her eyes, a sure sign of an oncoming headache.

"Go study in your room!" the voice of the sister shouted back at them. "I was playing down here first!" 

Dib grumbled something under his breath about impossibility of his sister, and made to get up from the table, but Zita was already gathering up her books. She shoved them back into her bag and shouldered it, going over to stand beside Dib. 

"Well?" She asked, as Dib looked up at her, looking a bit lost. 

"... right," The boy replied after a moment, getting her drift. "Upstairs." 

~~~

Surprisingly enough, Dib's bedroom was as neat as a pin. In one corner a small shelf sat with a couple old books laid out on them, and below them sat a couple of old videocassette tapes, neatly stacked. His walls were bare... an open laptop hummed on his desk. His bedspread was a dark navy blue, and like the rest of his room, was neatly made. 

"Huh," She commented, slightly surprised. She hadn't spent the last couple years of elementary school calling him crazy, or when she was feeling nice, calling him spaceboy, for no reason. Dib liked the paranormal. Beyond Zim that is. He liked talking about aliens FAR before Zim ever showed up. 

Dib's face was even more impassive than usual as he stepped by her and sat on his bed, near the front of it and began to shuffle through his bookbag for his notes. He didn't even take his trench coat off, she noticed... he hadn't when they had come in the door, hadn't when they sat down at the table either. 

"Soo... huh," She said as she walked over to his bed and stood by the other end of it. Dib glanced at her out of the corner of his eye to acknowledge her presence. "Kinda different than I expected." She said finally as she did a 360 and took in his entire bedroom. 

Dib shrugged and wrenched his textbook out of his bag with particular violence. "What's different?" He replied. 

Zita shrugged. "Well you know..." She shrugged again. "I thought you'd have pictures of aliens and stuff all over the place. That's all." 

Dib shrugged again. "I'm not into that stuff anymore," He said as he settled back against the pillow, textbook in hand. 

Zita snorted. "From the look of this room you're not into much of anything," She pointed out.

Dib make a small 'humph' sound and glared at her over the top of his book. "Can we get this over with?" He asked pointedly, his tea colored eyes inspecting her coolly. 

Zita shrugged and bit back a snide remark. Instead she sat down at the opposite end of the bed. A moment or so later she had pulled out her textbook and set it out on her lap, prepared to return to studying as well. 

A half an hour of near icy silence later and Zita couldn't take it anymore. She was stuck in the same room as geekboy, doing homework with him, and furthermore geekboy had proven himself to be a very interesting subject over the last couple hours. Everything from her conversation with him about the E.T. to his lack of anything really personal in his room led her to believe that there was something seriously amiss with a boy who used to be ranty and... annoying basically. And she had a pretty good feeling WHAT, exactly was amiss. 

"It's about Zim isn't it?" She asked, looking at him over her book. 

If she was smart enough to figure out that Zim was an alien, she was definitely smart enough to put the pieces together and figure out that whatever caused Dib to act like this had to do with him. What with the drop of interest in the paranormal and the lack of ANYTHING really in his life... 

Bingo! Her suspicions were confirmed when Dib looked up at her. She was also swift enough to catch the fleeting look in the boy's eyes, before he looked away. "I don't know what you're talking about," He said flatly. 

She smirked and put down her textbook, turning her gaze on the boy. "You DO know what I'm talking about Dib," She replied snottily. "Zim, a little green man from beyond the stars, disappeared... 3 years ago..." She put a mysterious air into her voice. She then gestured to the room. "And you lost interest in all things alien related and turned into a quiet geekboy instead of a loud crazy spaceboy. You won't even walk by his house... what happened?" 

"I don't want to--" Dib began darkly.

"Talk about it, I know," Zita replied, cutting him off. "But sometimes it's good to talk about things, you know." She sighed and leaned back against the covers. For a moment she stared up at the bare ceiling. "For example my dad is a complete asshole... he won't even let me go out after school, you know that? I have to go straight home. He thinks I'm stupid and I have to spend my entire evenings in my room trying to do my homework. But I can't because sometimes I don't get the concepts. But I can't ask him to help me, oh no, because then he'll just think I'm dumber than he already does. Did you know the only reason why I was allowed to come here today was because I said I was working on a school assignment with a classmate? At least if I'm here, he doesn't have to see me..." 

Dib looked slightly pained. "... I'm sorry..." He mumbled after a moment.

Zita shrugged. "That's okay." She said. "At least he doesn't hit me anymore..." She faked a bright smile. 

The silence was long and uncomfortable between them. Dib picked at his quilt. "Why'er you..." He started finally, confusion evident in his voice. 

Zita rolled over so that she was facing him. "Because sometimes it's good to talk." She said sternly. She sighed and inspected her fingernails then sat up abruptly. A faint flush colored her cheeks. Confession was good, but she hadn't meant to turn an already uncomfortable situation into an even more uncomfortable one. She was in a bedroom with someone who was a relative stranger to her. A male stranger at that. One who she had just confessed that her father used to beat her to. Fucking great. Suddenly retreating sounded like a very good idea. She leaned over and scooped up her textbook... only to catch the first line on the top page of one of her sheets of notes. 

'Murder rates decrease...' 

Murder_... huh. _

"Dib?" She turned her head back around to look at Dib. She opened her mouth... 

As it turned out, she didn't even have to ask. 

"... I killed him," He whispered quietly, his eyes still firmly trained on the bedspread. 

Her blood ran chill. She turned around completely, and stared at him from across the blankets. She knew what he said... but she couldn't help but to confirm his words. "What?" She asked softly, her eyes wide.

"That's what you wanted to know wasn't it?" He looked up at her, his eyes cold and hard again. "I killed him," He repeated, louder in response to the disbelieving look on her face. 

She put down the textbook she held. She hadn't even realized her hands were shaking until that moment, and she forced her fingers to let go of the book. "Zim." She said, gulping and turning back again. 

He nodded, once abruptly and turned away, shifting to dangle his long lanky legs off the side the bed and place his head in his hands for a moment. He withdrew them after a moment, but kept his gaze firmly trained on his lap. "It was near the end of grade 6," He said softly. "We were fighting, like we usually did, and I shot him with one of his own lasers. Got him in the leg." He let out a tiny little chuckle. "He was so mad at me about that... he screamed and ranted. And I..." He paused for a second. "I just laughed at him."

She stared at him. "What happened then?" She asked carefully after a moment or two of silence had crawled by. She wasn't sure she wanted to know, now, but it was far too late to turn back now... 

"He started..." Dib reached up and ran a hand across his forehead, like he had a headache. "He started threatening to kill me and everyone else on this planet. He said he'd do it for real this time. He was so angry... he tackled me, pushed me down. One of his... spider legs from his pack got me through the arm." He rubbed at his arm now, almost reflectively. "All I knew is I was bleeding and it hurt and I panicked. I thought he ripped my arm off. I got my hands on his laser thing again and I shot him again... this time through the chest. He screamed at me... and then he stopped suddenly." He gulped. "He couldn't breathe right. There was blood everywhere. All I could do was hold him... and watch as he died. It took forever... and all he would do is look at me... look at me like I betrayed him or something. Like... like it had all been a game and I broke the rules." He fell silent again. 

Zita looked at him with sympathy on her face. "I'm sorry." She said. Those words fell amazingly short of what she wanted to say... but there didn't seem to be any words in the English language to fill the dreadful gap. 

Dib was silent for a long moment. When he looked up again the expression on his face was haunted. "Sometimes I still hear him screaming," He said softly. "He screams and he screams and he won't..." He clenched his head suddenly, letting out a half wretched sob. 

Zita scooted across the mattress and placed a hand on the boy's thin shoulders. They trembled beneath her hand, shook as he sobbed quietly. 

"Dib," She said carefully after the boy had sobbed for a while. "Dib." She repeated. He quieted a bit and snuffled, running a fist across the back of his face. He didn't look at her though. 

Suddenly it was very important to her that she know. "Dib, what happened to the body?" The irony of the situation did not miss her, the fact that they were supposed to be doing a report on murder, instead of discussing where her partner hid a body.

Dib was silent for so long that she wondered if he was going to reply at all. Finally he did, in a strained whisper. 

"I didn't do anything with it." He said quietly. "I called some... people I knew. They took him away. A couple days after that the FBI raided and destroyed his base." He drew in a shuddering breath, then looked up at her out of hate-filled eyes. "He was my BEST FRIEND." He jabbed his finger towards her chest suddenly. "He was the ONLY ONE who ever took me seriously, and I... I just..." He balled his hand into a fist. "Killed him. Like he meant NOTHING to me." Dib clenched his head in his hands again, curling up on himself. 

Zita could only feel an immense amount of pity for the boy. He had been alone then... for three years, erasing everything to do with his former obsession from his mind in an attempt to eradicate his guilt... when instead it looked like it had been eating him alive from the inside out. 

"Dib," She tried with a sigh. "You didn't know..." 

"I DID know! I knew I was sending him off to be butchered, I KNEW I killed him." Suddenly the boy looked up, and just as suddenly his hate filled eyes were focused on her. "And you KNEW!" He shouted, the look on his face twisting into a hurt one. "You knew and you never said anything! You could have saved him!"

"That doesn't make any sense and you know it!" Zita snapped back, her temper at being accused of this getting the better of her. "What would have me saying anything done, huh? Besides earning Zim a one way ticket to the same place you sent him?" 

Dib paled and pulled back, retreating back against the pillow. He stared at her, horrified as she continued. "Maybe, if I had said something, he would have been still alive when they tied him to the autopsy table! Would that have been better?" She snapped. 

Dib looked away at that. "No," He said softly after a moment. 

Zita nodded and drew in a couple short breaths to calm herself down a bit. "You killed him." She said after a moment. "You and only you. No one else." 

Dib nodded again. "I know," He said. He turned his head suddenly, looking out of the bedroom window and Zita caught the glimmer of tears in his haunted eyes. 

Again Zita felt a bit of pity for the boy. If she ever wanted insight into the inner workings of Dib, her crazy fellow classmate, here it was. Dib could be summed up in basically one word... loneliness. Intense, aching loneliness. And suddenly that was one thing she did regret. She could have fought harder to save this boy. She could still. 

He needed so much to be... 

He wasn't all that repulsive, she decided. A bit of a fixer upper, but nothing she couldn't do. It would only take a little while. A tiny moment of her lifetime. Maybe she couldn't have saved the alien, but she could at least attempt to save the one who was obsessed with him. She had the strength where he didn't... 

She was scooting forwards on the blankets then, closer to Dib. The boy didn't catch on until it was nearly too late, until she had caught his chin in her palm and turned his face towards her. He did not smell horrible, she noticed, even when she was this close to him. Well besides smelling a bit like human boy... it wasn't unpleasant. She could do this... 

His eyes widened as he caught on and he shook his head quickly, desperately. "Nuhuh," He said, yanking back and turning his head to the side. "You can't, you..." 

"Shut up, Dib," Was all she said. And with that she panted a kiss firmly on his cool clammy cheek, since his lips were kinda inaccessible. He froze. His breathing was shallow and he swallowed against her hand as it rested cupped under his chin. When she pulled away, withdrew her hand, he turned his head again to stare at her out of wide, frightened eyes. 

She sat back on her haunches, feeling unduly pleased with herself all of a sudden.

Dib reached up, scrubbing at his cheek with the heel of his hand. "Why did you do that?" he asked, looking and sounding more confused than anything. 

Zita cocked her head to the side and inspected her study partner for a long moment. "I think it's about time you started living your life again, don't you?" 

Dib still looked confused. 

Zita sighed and reached over, grasping Dib by both of his too thin shoulders. "You," She explained. "Did not die the night that Zim died. You are alive." This time she closed her eyes as she leaned in, blindly searching and finally catching the boy on the lips. She pulled away after she felt enough time had passed. "And you are not alone." 

Something cracked then. Suddenly Dib was holding her back, hugging her furiously as he sobbed out all his pain and suffering. 

Zita merely smiled and held him. Step one down. 

For every life lost... 

~~~

End 


End file.
